By BRYAN STRICKLAND

bstrickland@heraldsun.com; 419-6671

DURHAM -- With the NIT Season Tip-Off in town Monday evening, a strange vibe surrounded Duke's 74-49 victory over Coastal Carolina.

The Cameron Crazies were on hand as always, but they were joined by Coastal Carolina's band as well as the Chanticleers' mascot, a bizarre bird that elicited conflicting chants of "Eat more chicken!" and "Turkey dinner!" from the Crazies.

But the most bizarre event of the night took place between the baselines in the game's opening minutes.

With two minutes gone by, Coastal Carolina led 6-0.

"I just didn't think we were strong with the ball in the beginning," Duke guard Jon Scheyer said. "Give them credit; they did a really good job. But we made some adjustments and were able to do better as the half went along."

Coastal Carolina coach Cliff Ellis, a former Clemson coach who is a longtime friend of Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, threw a triangle-and-two defense at stars Scheyer and Kyle Singler.

It worked for a while, but eventually the Blue Devils worked out a plan of attack and slowly pulled away.

Singler surged after a slow start, hitting 6 of 9 first-half shots while the rest of the team hit 6 of 20 as Duke built a 33-19 edge at the half.

Then in the second half, Duke turned more responsibility over to freshman Andre Dawkins against the junk defense, and he responded with 13 points -- including 3-of-11 shooting from 3-point range -- as Duke continued to pull away.

"You won't see this offense in a manual or a coaches' tape or whatever. It's a makeshift thing," Krzyzewski said. "It was a different kind of game. The triangle-and-two, spreading us out, I thought it took us a while to adjust to it, but we did.

"I thought overall we figured it out fine."

With the victory, Duke advanced to tonight's second-round game against Charlotte (6 p.m., ESPN), which downed Elon 75-61 in Monday's nightcap. Tonight's winner will advance to the semifinals in New York next week.

Duke finished with just 12 turnovers -- with Scheyer committing none for the second straight game -- but the Blue Devils' first four possessions all resulted in turnovers.

The Chanticleers scored after three of those and did so emphatically, with a backdoor layup, a slam-dunk follow and then a steal and a slam.

"We were trying to play mind games with Duke," Ellis said. "Mike and I have a great friendship, but when we get on the sidelines, I want to kick his rear end.

"But when it's over, it's over."

It was over not too long after the shocking start. Singler didn't attempt a shot over the game's first eight minutes, but he scored 15 of his 23 points in before halftime in spite of a defense geared to stop him.

A junk defense by Duke's standards also keyed the turnaround.

The Devils played lots of matchup zone and played it well. After Coastal Carolina hit 3 of 4 shots to start, the Chanticleers hit three of their next 22 shots to fall behind 26-12. Coastal Carolina scored six points over the game's first two minutes, then scored just six more over the next 14-plus minutes.

"Coach doesn't want us to just stand there in a two-three zone -- he wants us matching up with people and being active," Scheyer said. "The main thing is to rebound and keep people out of our paint."

Krzyzewski said that Scheyer played a great game by sacrificing his offensive production. Scheyer still managed 10 points, hitting all seven of his free throws and just one field goal, a 3-pointer early in the second half when Coastal Carolina crept within 10 points.

There's little chance that Charlotte, which got 23 points from Boston College transfer Shamari Spears, will run a triangle-and-two at Duke because the Devils will welcome guard Nolan Smith back from his two-game suspension tonight.

"It will be nice to have Nolan back," Krzyzewski said.